Tag Archives: digital storytelling

Okay, I’ll admit it. This one took some time to wrap my brain around. What if you could make links in a photo? I don’t mean the Facebook-style tagging that you can do to identify people. I don’t even mean the Flickr-style comments that you can make by highlighting a portion of a photo and attaching some text to it. I mean make a link to anything. Add a text comment. Make a link to a web page. Embed a video or an audio clip. How cool would that be?

That’s what Thinglink is. You start with a photo, and then add stuff to it. Maybe it’s a nice park scene. There’s a pond with some ducks swimming near the shore. Children are playing on the swings nearby. A young couple strolls down the path with their dog.

When you mouse over the photo, you see links. Mouse over the children and a YouTube video pops up of children playing. Mouse over the ducks and see a Wikipedia entry on them. Mouse over the couple and see links to their blogs or Twitter profiles. It’s a hyperlinked photo. Best of all, you can embed it on any blog or web page.

We often talk about technology in education in terms of what students can create. What can they make that helps them demonstrate their learning? Students could use Thinglink to organize their understanding of content or to tell digital stories. What if the photo is of the Roman Forum? What if it’s a wetland? How can they use that to share what they’ve learned?